This airline is best in class for 2013

Frontier Airlines catapulted from the No. 5 spot last year to the top spot in Airfarewatchdog.com’s 2013 airline rankings, which may come as a surprise to many, especially considering the carrier’s tumultuous year of change.

The annual ranking is based on five performance areas: canceled flights, on-time arrivals, mishandled bags, denied boardings and customer satisfaction.

The Denver-based carrier shined in low rates of canceled flight and mishandled bags as well as good on-time arrival rates. However, of the ten major U.S. carriers analyzed, the airline ranked second to last for its rate of denied boardings.

Airfarewatchdog, a company and website that tracks cheap airfares, used the following weighted system for its ranking:

Frontier customers endured some excruciating growing pains this year as the carrier began transitioning from a low-cost carrier to an ultra-low-cost carrier — a new business model that strips down the cost of a plane ticket and then allows passengers to tack on non-essential services for a fee. But from a performance standpoint, Airfarewatchdog found that the carrier has been largely successful in this process.

“Frontier has done a great job in improving the basics—on-time performance, completing flights, and delivering bags on time. Plus, they have very aggressive fare sales, especially combined with their frequent promo code offers,” said Airfarewatchdog’s president George Hobica, in a statement. “Just be sure to book flights on FlyFrontier.com in order to get the best fares and avoid certain fees.”